A Preliminary Study of Developing Discovery-Based Writing Assessments to Stimulate Students’ Critical Thinking and Creativity

Abstract

--Composing and developing assessments that are suitable to the existing curriculum are the tasks for English teachers. However, most of them still did not develop the assessments that were appropriate to the 2013 curriculum. This study aimed to explain the existing writing assessments and the need for the students to stimulate their critical thinking and creativity. It was conducted at the tenth graders of MA Manbaul Quran. The method used in this research was research and development (R&D). To get the data, researcher used observation, questionnaire, and interview. The findings of the study showed that the English teacher did not understand the demand of 2013 curriculum that was to make students critical and creative. It meant that the teacher was not able to stimulate students critical thinking and creativity. The study also indicated that the English teacher did not develop discovery-based writing assessments. Further, the study showed that the teacher had to give pre-activities before she gave writing assessments for the students. The last, the study showed that the students got some difficulties to write English text. The difficulties of the students such as to translate English text, and to arrange, elaborate, and make a story. It meant that the students needed more activities that could help them ready to arrange, elaborate and make a story. Therefore, it was suggested for the teacher to adopt and develop discovery-based writing assessments to stimulate students’ critical thinking and creativity. Keywords—Critical thinking, creativity, writing assessments